Posts from Monday Jul 9 2012

The Closer

| Jul 09 2012 22:07 | Comment |

ROUND-UP

Another down day for US stocks. Global growth and the eurozone were blamed as the S&P 500 fell 0.16 per cent to 1,352.46 (Reuters). Read more

The dollar-euro repo arb?… Not yet

Cardiff writes mostly about US macroeconomic issues, with daily excursions into other topics about which he claim no expertise. Before Alphaville, Cardiff spent a little more than two years as a reporter at Dow Jones Financial News covering investment banking, asset management, and private equity. Along the way he has written freelance pieces on a variety of other topics from behavioural psychology to Muay Thai, the latter also being a personal interest that involves frequently getting kicked in the shins (and torso, and head).

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| Jul 09 2012 20:35 | Comment |

Well, here’s one answer to a question we’d been wondering about since last week, when the ECB lowered the deposit rate from 0.25 per cent to zero.

We were curious to know whether some EUR-denominated investors would switch into USD short-term markets in a search for yield. Read more

The great American consumer strikes again

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jul 09 2012 20:20 | Comment |

Another notable increase in US consumer credit, this time for May…

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How to beat Apple in court: be uncool

Masa joined the FT in 2009 and has worked on a number of desks across the paper, including Companies, Markets and Comment. She spent much of 2010 in New York covering the US equity markets. But earlier this year she finally saw the light and moved to Alphaville.

She started her career in the investment banking division at Lehman Brothers in the summer of 2007, timing it perfectly with the beginning of the credit crunch.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

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| Jul 09 2012 18:54 | Comment |

On Monday, the UK’s High Court ruled against Apple in its lawsuit against Samsung, which Apple accused of copying its designs with the latest Galaxy tablet.

But part of the rationale given for the ruling by Judge Colin Birss was… unusual: Read more

Tucker TV

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jul 09 2012 17:09 | Comment |

Click the pic for the live* feed from Wilson Room, Portcullis House…

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Almost everyone goes mental about Libor

| Jul 09 2012 14:50 | Comment |

As last week was dominated by holidays and the Supreme Court’s healthcare ruling in the US, it’s taken a little longer than usual for some of the econoblogopunditsphere there to get really fired up about the Libor scandal. But it’s well and truly happening now.

First up Nouriel Roubini, who says things have become worse since then financial crisis: the TBTF banks are bigger, along with their conflicts of interest. Our (rough) transcript of one part follows: Read more

Taux négatifs

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jul 09 2012 14:34 | Comment |

The latest sovereign to borrow at negative yields — France.

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The RED/Tucker files

Paul Murphy is the founding editor of FT Alphaville.

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| Jul 09 2012 12:40 | Comment |

Revealing little, but here it is — the Bank of England’s response to a Freedom of Information Act request from John Mann MP, seeking “copies of emails and transcripts of telephone conversations between Deputy Governor, Paul Tucker and Bob Diamond, Chief Executive of Barclays between 1 October 2008 and the 30 November 2008.”

Covering letter… (click the images) Read more

ECB deposit rate fallout

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jul 09 2012 11:55 | Comment |

We hate to tell the ECB we told you so…

… but since it took less than a day for the first zero deposit victims to surface, we think it’s pretty telling that this is turning out to be a very big deal indeed. Read more

China and those dollar shorts

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jul 09 2012 11:41 | Comment |

A few weeks ago FT Alphaville drew attention to a Standard Chartered report that quantified what we had been hearing via anecdotal reports for a while, namely that Chinese corporates had somehow ended up with a large dollar short position — estimate about $800bn — due to previous expectations that the Chinese renminbi would only ever strengthen against the US currency.

This, of course, is very reminiscent to the situation that non-eurozone emerging Europe found itself in after 2008. Many corporates there had shorted the euro and the Swiss franc on similar expectations that their own currencies would only keep strengthening — though this time related to euro adoption convergence effects. Read more

Markets Live transcript 9 Jul 2012

Paul Murphy is the founding editor of FT Alphaville.

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| Jul 09 2012 11:02 | Comment |
This is a Markets Live transcript. Read more

Live markets commentary from FT.com 

Noah Smith is a moron and he’ll get cancer soon, etc

Paul Murphy is the founding editor of FT Alphaville.

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| Jul 09 2012 11:01 | Comment |

Actually, Noah Smith, author of the Noahpinion blog, is not a moron. And we certainly do not hope that he’ll get ill.

But you see we have to get in character here, because this post is about Zerohedge. Read more

Japan’s machinery orders are (possibly) tankan

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Jul 09 2012 10:48 | Comment |

Japan machinery orders & 3-month moving average of same. Scotty Barber/Reuters

This chart about Japan’s machinery orders (from Scotty Barber) tells us two things: Read more

The (early) Lunch Wrap

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jul 09 2012 10:40 | Comment |

Good morning New York…

FT ALPHAVILLE Read more

Time for unconventional unconventional policy?

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Jul 09 2012 10:05 | Comment |

Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius, in his response to the Friday non-farm payroll figures, says the bank’s central case of 1.5 to 2 per cent GDP growth in the US over the next four quarters “still feels right” although there are risks it will be weaker.

If that central case is right, Goldman expects further Fed easing. Read more

The ‘natural experiment’ of negative deposits rates in Denmark

| Jul 09 2012 08:35 | Comment |

Maybe not truly natural, as this is a matter of currency intervention, but close.

After the ECB lowered its interest and deposit rates on Thursday, the Danish central bank, Nationalbanken, followed a few hours later. Read more

Further reading

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Jul 09 2012 08:13 | Comment |

Elsewhere on Monday,

- Let’s get unconventional, unconventional. Read more

Weekend news catch-up

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Jul 09 2012 05:35 | Comment |

Weekend headlines from the FT and other UK media:*

From The FT, Read more

The 6am Cut London

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Jul 09 2012 05:31 | Comment |

Asian stock markets fell and the yen rose after data showed Japanese machinery orders fell 14.8% in May from the previous month. (Bloomberg)

Japan’s current account surplus for May was its smallest since at least 1985. The surplus was 215.1bn yen, less than half the median estimate of 24 economists. (Bloomberg) Read more